Hello, I've only today become aware of a problem where, once again, a company wants to sneak possibly patent-encumbered stuff into a standard that is subsequently to be used in software around the world. As you are most likely already aware of, there is no way for a broad class of software to implement anything that is patent-encumbered, and apart from the fact that this part in the software world has the highest growth in the industry, a patent on anything will split the software world into fractions that can adopt a patented standard, and one that can't. So, first, I'd like to thank you for rejecting the standard proper while it included this extension. But since standardization often takes much longer than the market is willing to wait, a significant part of today's operations, especially in the fast-paced Internet area where such a standard would most likely have to be employed, a draft will be implemented, too, simply to fill the gap. For this reason, publishing the function in question in the draft will also create large damage because there'll be a significant number of players to adopt this functionality, expecting it to become a part of the standard proper in the next revision of it, and in the hope to gain a competitive edge. And once it's implemented, there's a number of stakeholders who will weight in to make sure that the questionable function actually *will* be promoted to be part of the proper standard. A few years ago, a representative from a networking company (maybe Cisco) explained it exactly that way, that not adopting current practise in a standard means possibly high financial losses to the player who bet on it early. I don't know if or how you are liable to such users, but in case you are, there'll be no chance to remove it, ever, once it has entered any piece of paper, be it a "draft" or not. So, in conclusion, I hope that you don't approve of this function in any of your publications and reject it in the draft, too. Side note: Please make it a mandatory policy that anyone that proposes anything to be encoded into a standard, will automatically say that there'll be no patent claims pertaining to their proposal. Ie, if a company proposes functionality X and has a patent on it, then a license for that patent will automatically be granted to everyone, for every kind of use, irrevocably, perpetually, and royalty-free. And if company X proposes something and comany Y has a patent on it, there should be a way to give them a realistic option to voice any concerns before the standard is passed, but once it's passed, no patent claim will pertain to anything arising out of the use of the standard (eg. a future "JPEG patent" will automatically become effectively void after the standard is passed), like in a marriage ceremony: "Who has objections to this marriage, should raise his voice now, or be silent forever." Thank you for listening. Kind Regards, Toni Mueller. -------- AS29394 TM28-RIPE Oeko.neT Mueller & Brandt GbR sales: info@xxxxxxxx v: +49 2261 979364 f: +49 2261 979366 http://www.oeko.net consulting, systems administration, software development, Python, Perl, networking, Unix, Debian Linux, OpenBSD, Internet services, trainings GPG: 1024D/68BDA342; FP=3312 D609 AD2E 8C05 D494 139E 8419 E0DB 68BD A342 A. Because it breaks the logical sequence of discussion. Q. Why is top posting bad? $ echo "creationism" | tr -d "holy godly goal" _______________________________________________ Ietf@xxxxxxxx https://www1.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/ietf